Soccer for Dummies

Red alert to the suburbs: Soccer may be great for developing sinewy
legs and good coordination, but all that head-butting might not be so
good for your brain. A study found that soccer players who
frequently "head" the ball score lower on a set of
neurocognitive tests than players who don't rely on their noggins
so much.

Frank Webbe, a professor of psychology at Florida Tech, also found
that those ballplayers who headed the ball most often—and had
played within the past seven days—suffered the most cognitive
deficits.

Webbe is not ready to claim that kiddie soccer champs will do worse
in school: "We haven't adequately established the
relationship between neurocognitive tests and typical school
exams," he says. But some other research has shown that soccer
players may fare worse than other athletes on these tests.

Soccer organizations disagree, pointing to a scientific review of
more than 50 studies that found no direct links between ball-heading and
brain injury. "More often than not, injuries are from head-to-head
contact," says Craig Bohnert, spokesperson for the National Soccer
Coaches Association of America.

Webbe says that proper technique reduces the sub-concussive damage
that probably causes the cognitive troubles: "You should hit the
ball at the fringe of the hairline, and the neck and shoulder muscles
should be braced to pivot the head." That way, he says, you hit the
ball rather than letting the ball hit you. Another solution: Hang up your
cleats, and take up croquet.